"Smile" -a Mixed Media Canvas With Colourarte by Lynne

Happy Monday fellow crafters! This afternoon I'll be heading to the post office to put this canvas in the mail for my Dad's 81st birthday on April 30th. He recently had to move into a nursing home and has lots of plain wall space to be personalized. Since we live so far away I thought it would be nice for him to have a picture of my family for his room. Although the photo is a few years old, it's the most recent one of the four of us together.

I had a lot of fun layering the colors here. Canvases like this are great because if you aren't happy with the color combination, you can keep adding more or paint over it and start again.  I started with a couple shades of brown acrylic paint to coordinate with the sepia tones in the photo and layered them with dry-brushing and sponge painting. I did the same to the chipboard pieces and other embellishments before attaching them. I then had the chance to add some touches of colour with some beautiful new products from ColourArte

Loved the Curly Word smile piece for my title!!

Steampunk hearts are so great when you don't want something to be too girly-girl!!

Even flowers are okay on a man's gift if you throw in some gears and lightbulbs-lol!

I am in love with these Skeleton clocks as frames. As you may know from previous posts, I'm crazy about clocks and time-themed items!

I used the Radiant Rain Color Concentrate daubers in Nutmeg  Coral Berry and Wine & Roses by dabbing the colours directly onto the canvas then blending them with my finger (yes I like to get inky and messy when I create!) and used the Shimmering Mist in Sour Lemon. I also added some orange mist from my stash to get the range of colour I wanted. I looked in the ColourArte store and saw a couple lovely oranges that I will have to add to my collection...and of course a lot of other fabulous colours! Check them out and I'm sure you'll want to collect a few (or a lot!) to use on your Gypsy Soul chipboard pieces.

Gypsy Soul Items Used
Curly Word: Smile
Steampunk Hearts
Skeleton Clocks

Other Items Used
Radiant Rain Shimmering Mist-sour lemon
Radiant Rain dauber-nutmeg
Radiant Rain Dauber-wine & roses
Radiant Rain Dauber-coral berry
Recollections Bohemian shimmer mist